Comment by SeanLuke
13 hours ago
I dunno. On first glance, for a "21st-Century" textbook, this seems to place a high emphasis on classical music theory, and moves very highly influential modern styles to the back burner -- notably jazz. And there is essentially no discussion of music theory in other cultures (middle eastern, african, east asian, indian), nor current analysis of pop and rock music.
I have a BA in Music Theory, I think maybe you should consider again. First off, Jazz relies on the same fundamentals and extends them, everything from Classical music is somewhat relevant in Jazz. So if it's only Jazz theory exclusive to classical, it'd be an advanced book indeed.
Second, it literally has a chapter on Popular Music and another on Jazz Theory, and "Classical" is not found in its chapter titles. So I don't think your critique is accurate.
Third, history and time matter. "Theory" came first in "classical" contexts, with codified rules pre-dating even Bach. Jazz was a much later invention that built upon these and other traditions. Both of the Jazz theory books I used in my BA in Music Theoryhad many elementary topics already covered in Classical contexts.
Yes, I think people have this fantasy that Jazz has anything new to offer in terms of music theory. That's false, everything used in Jazz was already part of the practice of classical music sometimes centuries ago. For example, improvisation was common in Mozart time and extended chords were common already in the 19th century. The only difference may be the terminology used in Jazz circles, but this is something that can be learned later if you want to specialize in that style.
I’m a jazz player but not a theory expert. A lot of what jazz is about is rhythmic, and the elevation of improvisation to a very high level.
I know a lot of people with music degrees. This is a widely acknowledged problem. It doesn't have a simple answer, especially as academic music programs are shrinking. You can't teach everything except at a survey level. You have to find faculty who can teach new topics at a college level. And students who are prepared to dive in. Music students tend to already be damn good musicians by the time they start college.
If programming is an analogy, it's said that once you've learned your first language, you can learn any other language in a jiffy. Also, a lot of higher level learning is "learning how to learn." Maybe it's better to have a standardized "first language" that students can learn in depth, and then let them move into other areas at their own discretion.
I don't have a college degree, but for me, classical music lessons were a great preparation for learning jazz, and I've picked up pop, rock, and folk music on my own. In fact, on the instrument that I play, the double bass, gaining proficiency and experience in jazz without that background is a brutal learning curve.
Anecdotally, I know a few people who spent decades working on and/or teaching middle eastern music in conservatories abroad, and they struggle greatly to find music departments in the US who will hire them. A problem I've seen firsthand is that there are a lot of senior professors who teach it hand wavy versions of it filtered through whatever books Euro orientalists wrote mid century and are threatened at the prospect of someone coming in there who has studied and practiced it for years in places where it's more of a living art form cutting into their position of expertise.
Where this ties in to your point is that part of the reason they really don't want experts is that they rarely have someone whose job it is to teach middle eastern music. They might have a guitar teacher with some experience with oud, a flute teacher who can passably play ney (usually with awful intonation), etc. For most schools, these other types of music are "add-ons" that they have their existing faculty teach.
> And there is essentially no discussion of music theory in other cultures (middle eastern, african, east asian, indian)...
To me, that above ^ looks like the biggest gap.
To be fair, the book doesn't claim to demonstrate theory of the "world music" (sic, a phrase as bad as it sounds).
My (brief and shallow) understanding is that most scholars of music in the western world just do not have enough knowledge to talk intelligently about non-western genres. Exceptions exist, of course, but they are quite rare.
[Other reason is that there is a lot of gate-keeping. I've seen that in Hindustani/Carnatic classical studies, FWIW, which is one my areas of interest]
I don't understand why this standard is always applied to westerners. When we go to other countries, are they explaining all the fundamentals of western music in addition to the theories of their own? "Yeah our students in Boston don't know anything about Carnatic rhythm, but over in Bengal they all learn counterpoint and fugue before they learn the traditional ornaments"
"Oh no, math degree... Where is 2+2=4?"